Five Things You Need to Know Today: Jan. 7

1. Board of Aldermen. The Newton Board of Aldermen will meet tonight at 7:45 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber at City Hall. The reports docket for tonight's meeting is included in the .pdf to the right. 

2. Curbside Christmas tree pickup. Starting today, the city will collect Christmas trees during regular curbside recycling pickup. The collection will run for this week and next week. Residents should place the undecorated trees on the curb by 7 a.m. on their recycling collection day.

3. Acoustic open mic. Mick Morgan's Pub will host an acoustic open mic tonight starting at 8:30 p.m. 

4. GasLand screening. As part of the library's "Greening Our Community" series, Newton Free Library and Green Decade/Newton will present a free screening of the film GasLand tonight at 7 p.m. in the Druker Auditorium. The film covers the topic of fracking and how it affects communities across the country. Ellie Goldberg, a Green Decade/Newton advisory board member, will facilitate a post-screening discussion.

5. Post on the Newton Patch Local Voices blog. Do you have some local news to share or a discussion to start? Write about it in the Newton Patch Local Voices blog. The blog is open to any Newton residents or business owners who'd like to share with the community.